


hungry for your next breath

by hulklinging



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, More like a Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 07:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Lup feels him forget.





	hungry for your next breath

**Author's Note:**

> it's two am and i was sad so i wrote this.  
> i'm new here. i hope i did this amazing character and her story justice.  
> gosh i hope she gets to take part in this finale.

\

She feels it happen.

She went and died, cold and alone in this stupid nowhere cave, but it was going to be okay. Because she was a lich, and because she had the strongest connections a lich could fucking have. All Lup had to do was get them to come to her. Then they could figure out how she had gotten herself trapped in her own umbra staff, and they could free her, and everything would be okay.

That’s what they did. Her and Taako. They found out how to be okay.

Liches are strange things. Her body is dead, her whole being caught in her own staff, she shouldn’t be able to feel pain. She can’t scream, but she knows that if she had a mouth and lungs she would be, because something is ripping her apart. No, not her - she knows what that feels like, she remembers what it felt like to become this, holding onto her memories with everything she had, picturing Barry and Taako in her mind. This is not her. But it does have to do with her memories. She can feel him being ripped from her, and it’s not like losing a limb. She’s been there, done that, that is nothing compared to this. She feels hollow, torn asunder, but she can still recall the taste of her aunt’s turkey, that day, can still remember how she laughed as they burned that world down for a day. So her memories are fine. It’s her brother’s that have been erased, and she doesn’t have a tongue but the static still tastes like acid, like poison.

And Lup… she is no stranger to despair. They’ve all grown quite familiar with despair, knows what it’s like to choke on it and then swallow it down. But she can feel the static overtaking her connection with her twin, and she can hear her own voice saying how no one can take that away, and she burns with anger, longs for fingers with which to summon flames into existence, wants to burn the world down again, this time not in joy but in rage, because how dare they. How dare they, whoever did this, whoever dared to attempt to sever the connection between them. She’s a fucking umbrella, she has nothing but those memories and the knowledge that somewhere, the people she shared them with are okay. 

Are coming for her.

She feels four more bursts of static, although none of them bring pain. Barry stays, and that’s what keeps her there at all. If she had lost Barry she’d have lost everything, been consumed by this bottomless anger. Barry stays, reliable and stronger than anyone ever gives him credit for.

She won’t be able to tell who else stays for a very long time. And she will never be able to fully forgive her. Lup can be a big-picture person, but Lucretia went and messed with her twin, and that is inexcusable.

Lup is kept anchored by Barry, but time… passes, and she is not present enough to know how much. She only comes back to herself when she feels a familiar presence near, and with every bit of her strength she calls to her brother.

And something in him, some unconscious part of him, buried too deeply to be caught by any fish, something that can only be formed by being two that came from one, hears. Hears, and answers, and when he reaches out, she lets him.

It’s only once she’s held safe in her brother’s hands that she realizes she’s been screaming since he left her, that the pain never stopped. Him being close has lessened it, and she hopes that he can feel it too, that even if he can’t remember he feels a little less empty, now that they’re together again.

Lup does what she’s always done. She keeps her brother safe. And when she can, she does her best to help him remember. She carves her name into the wall, she takes aim at his suitor to keep her and Barry safe. He slips on that band and she focuses everything left of herself into those few words, telling him to  _trust Barry_. She remembers that song, the one they wrote, the year they fell together, and she begs her brother to  _love Barry_.

And then… he remembers. And as he remembers their shared childhood, every success and failure, every moment of every repeated year as they tried to save the worlds, she remembers what it felt like, to have skin laid over muscles and bone. When he breathes in, she feels her own lungs expanding with air. As his memories knit together, so too does she.

He is why she is here, and she is why he is. And that is a truth, a constant, like the Light of Creation.

This is it. And as her limbs reform and her body feels heavy with the weight of existence, she knows this is exactly where she is supposed to be.

When Lup is remembered back into this world, she comes back smiling.

The thing is, Lup and Taako are no stranger to hunger. They grew up on the streets, fighting for every scrap.  Together, hand in hand, they beat it back. This? This is nothing.

Lup is back, and the Hunger does not scare her anymore.


End file.
